Olly Blackburn Captures Familiar Moments of Britishness for BBC iPlayer

Great Guns comedy performance director Olly Blackburn has recently returned to the commercials world after his latest film Kristy featured at the BFI London Film Festival and having directed E4’s latest drama GLUE, with a Red Bee co-production shooting BBC iPlayer for Rainey Kelly.   

Olly’s strength in visual storytelling, of showing the everyday through a poetic, cinematic lens, is showcased in this heartwarming film which focuses on the concept of Britishness.  With resonant characters, cinematic images and english humour there’s a real warmth and soul to the film.

Through a series of vignettes, each becomes a celebration of Britishness in a way.  A frank and honest account of situations that every viewer will feel is happening somewhere they know or have seen before.  There is a warmth and subtle understated humour that all the characters express through their natural performances.

Shot over 4 days in West and East Sussex and locations around London the film reflects people from every corner of the country, the film is beautifully finished off with a great piece of music to drive it, “This Charming Man” by The Smiths.

On shooting Iplayer Olly comments, “After being lost to the world of features and TV for the last couple of years iPlayer was a dream project to return to — fantastic script/concept from Harry Stanford and Mike Insley at RKYR lovingly shepherded by Mick Mahoney… all about the spirit of Britishness and classy enough to get The Smiths to agree to license a track for the first time in decades. 'This Charming Man' underscores the humorous, strange and downright awkward situations where us Brits would rather be watching our iPlayer and to that extent this one was all about the humanity and the emotion… In other words all about the casting: a rich range of faces and personalities beautifully put together by Des Hamilton Casting”.